From Jame Geathers’ Ted Talk comes the idea of “taking off the mask” of stigma, particularly within mental health struggles such as Bipolar disorder. Geather’s vivid life experiences of bipolar disorder that is analogous to a carnival swing ride, is marked by extremes of mania, insomnia, hypersexuality, and profound despair. This emphasizes how stigma often compels individuals to conceal their authentic experiences (Geather, 2018). This idea of concealing resonated strongly with me because stigma can silence stories that desperately need to be shared. This echoes our class conversations on cultural competence and the importance of embracing intersectionality in clinical practice.
Relating Geather’s to Wynn and West-olatunji’s (2008) description of NTU psychotherapy emphasizes the necessity of integrating cultural, emotional, and spiritual contexts into therapeutic engagement, underscoring authenticity in clinical practice. The idea that “NTU psychotherapy helps individual align with the natural order and achieve authentic function (Wynn &West-Olatunji, 2008) reinforce Geather’s experience of liberation through authentic self-expression. Jones et al. (2023) stress the importance of considering social determinants of mental health, signifying that “counselors must intervene at interpersonal, intrapersonal, and community levels because multi level advocacy parallels Geather’s call for greater education, openness, and systemic awareness about mental illness – specifically being bipolar.
From a PROP lens, Geather’s narrative highlights crucial implications for the process of engagement. Finn (2021) reminds that engagement requires being “fully present and open to another’s story,” which demands that social workers combat stigma around mental health to create safe spaces for clients to authentically share their stories. Teaching and learning in this framework requires that practitioners critically examine and challenge their implicit biases perpetuated by labels to prevent inadvertently reinforcing stigma and oppressive values. Action and accompaniment necessitate clinicians actively resisting systems that deny full personhood or erase the nuanced struggles of mental illness, advocating instead for comprehensive, culturally sensitive, and socially just mental health practices.
As social workers striving to honor the entire selfhood of our clients within the constraints of the system, how can we cultivate an environment of openness and trust in practice settings that historically marginalized or silence certain identities and experiences .